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In this mailing:
by Judith Bergman
• August 29, 2016 at 6:00 am
- The U.S.
announced its plan to pass the oversight of the agency to a global
governance model on October 1, 2016. The Obama Administration says
that the transition will have no practical effects on the internet's
functioning or its users, and even considers the move necessary in
order to maintain international support for the internet and to
prevent a fracturing of its governance. Oh really?
- The absence of
the U.S. in overseeing the governance of the internet could spell
the end of the current era of free speech on the internet, as well
as free enterprise.
- What guarantees
are there that internet governance will not eventually end up in the
hands of those very governments, seeing as they are all very eager
to gain control of it? None. The Geneva Declaration of Principles
makes clear that the UN, run by a majority of authoritarian
governments, wants a decisive role for governments in internet
governance.
- Civil society
groups and activists are calling on Congress to sue the Obama
Administration -- perhaps at least to postpone the date until more
Americans are aware of the plan. It is not too late.
Very soon, on October 1, 2016, much of the internet's governance
will shift from the US National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA) authority to a nonprofit multi-stakeholder entity,
the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, also known by
its acronym ICANN.
Until now, NTIA has been responsible for key internet domain name
functions, such as the coordination of the DNS (Domain Name System) root,
IP addresses, and other internet protocol resources. But in March 2014,
the U.S. announced its plan to let its contract with ICANN to operate key
domain name functions expire in September 2015, passing the oversight of
the agency to a global governance model. The expiration was subsequently
delayed until October 1, 2016.
According to the NTIA's press release at the time,
by Maria Polizoidou
• August 29, 2016 at 4:00 am
- The Minister
for Immigration Affairs himself, repeatedly stated that 50% to 70%
of migratory flows to Greece were illegal migrants and the rest were
refugees. The illegal migrants come from 77 different countries.
- If it is a
"racist crime" for a citizen to express accurately the
percentages of refugees and illegal migrants entering the country,
what will come next, the Thought Police?
- The real reason
for prosecuting Bishop Markos, it seems, is that the government
expects that Turkey's migration deal with the EU will collapse, and
that if it does, the migrant flows in the coming months will
increase dramatically. The government, according to some members in
the opposition, has no friendly way to manage illegal migration and
therefore prefers to impose restrictions on freedom of speech and
prosecute anyone who objects.
- The government
might scare the Bishop of Chios Island by pressing charges against
him and trying to stigmatize him as a racist. But the government
will still not scare the angry majority of Greeks.
Left: The Bishop of the Greek island of Chios, Markos
Vasilakis, is being prosecuted for incitement to racial hatred, because
he correctly observed that most of the migrants arriving in Greece from
Turkey were not refugees but illegal migrants. Right: Migrants occupying
the port of Chios in April 2016.
In coalmines, from 1911 to 1986, canaries operated as an early
warning system for the leakage of hazardous gases. Whenever the birds
showed signs of distress, the miners knew trouble was coming.
Greece has deep problems. Greece is presently in the
"coalmine" of an endless economic and immigration crisis.
This month, for the first time, there was a request to activate an
anti-racist law, passed in September 2014, against a Greek citizen who
also has institutional status.
The coalition government of Alexis Tsipras (SYRIZA) and Panos
Kammenos (Independent Greeks) asked the district attorney to prosecute
the Bishop of Chios Island, Markos Vasilakis, because he dared to say,
during a sermon, that the thousands of people who recently arrived from
Turkey on the island of Chios are illegal migrants, and not Syrian
refugees.
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